


The Dane could never suffer my gruel

by fineandwittie



Category: The Last Kingdom (TV)
Genre: Alfred being repressed af, Episode: s01e04, M/M, Uhtred needs a hug and a friend
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-24
Updated: 2021-02-24
Packaged: 2021-03-14 16:42:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,732
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29670207
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fineandwittie/pseuds/fineandwittie
Summary: The conversation that Uhtred and Alfred have in season 1, episode 4 ends a little differently.Or Uhtred gets his say
Relationships: Alfred the Great/Uhtred of Bebbanburg
Comments: 1
Kudos: 13





	The Dane could never suffer my gruel

**Author's Note:**

> Unbeta'd and unproofread. Sorry!

“Broth, Lord.” Uhtred says to him on a field near their camp in the weak light of late autumn. 

Alfred viciously quashes the flare of amusement that rises in his chest at Uhtred verbal acuity. He should not be amused by this man, this heathen who stands tall beside him and never bows. He should not feel warmth growing in him with every new conversation that they share. He should not want Uhtred always by his side, always ready with a sharp word or quick retort, beautiful and fierce. He should not even be thinking any of it.

And yet, he does and he is. 

He is also accustomed, through long habit, to denying himself the things that he wants.

He inhales, ready to shift the field beneath them, to put Uhtred on his back foot and deprive him of the argument he obviously wishes to have. Instead, Uhtred beats him to it.

“Lord, may I have your permission to speak freely?” His voice, usually so expressive, is flat. He does not turn his eyes from the horizon, does not look at Alfred.

Alfred finds himself a little breathless. “Have you not always spoken freely before now?”

This draws Uhtred’s eyes to him. They are blue-grey in the pale sun, the color of the sea in a storm. “No, Lord. I have not. Truthfully, always, but never freely.”

Alfred could feel his eyebrows climb. “Well, then. By all means. I am interested to know what it is that Uhtred Ragnarson has believed too inflammatory to speak.”

Uhtred snorted lightly and the corners of his mouth curled. “Lord…in all the time that I have known you, I have never spoke a lie to you. I have never misled you or sought to trick you or manipulate you. I have been nothing but honest and forthright with you. You know my goals, my intents, my skills, my history.” He pauses for a moment.

Alfred waits, curious and tense for whatever might follow.

“And yet, at every opportunity, you accuse me of lying, of betrayal, of deceit. Simply because you believe me to be a heathen. I know the word of Christ. I have been baptized twice. There is no need to evangelize me, all of which you knew. And so, instead, you seek to punish me for it.”

“Uhtred—“ Alfred is not quite sure what he would have followed this interjection with, but it feels necessary to lodge some objection to this. He did not do what Uhtred accuses him of.

Did he?

“Lord, you are allowing me to speak and so I will. Does not your book say that everyone who passes judgment on others will be condemned for it himself? And yet you judge me for some failing that I cannot help. Why must I continue to prove myself to you when all you ever give me in return is contempt? I could have walked away many times already. I could have left with Brida and my brother. I could have refused to swear to you. I could have walked away when you left me rotting in a dungeon for more than a day after you had returned from the battle. I did none of those things. I am here. I am still here. But you wrap me in chains anyway. I don’t understand what you want from me. Nothing I do or say is enough to prove my loyalty. You forced me to swear an unnecessary oath to you. When the oath’s term ended, you tied me to you with a bride that came with an impossible debt. Why?”

Though Uhtred’s voice never rises, Alfred tenses as though he has. The words sink deep into his bones and the knuckles of his right hand go white with how tightly he is gripping his left. He is drowning in the echo of words he has spoke and ones he has not. There is a small voice inside him that he refuses to acknowledge or examine, but it whispers to him now that Uhtred is not lying, has never lied. That it has been exactly as Uhtred says and should not Alfred ask himself why he has behaved in this manner?

He tries to take a moment to consider his response, but instead blurts out in a hoarse whisper, “Unnecessary oath?”

Uhtred laughs, self-deprecating and mirthless. “Yes, Lord. Unnecessary. You did not need to force me into swearing to you. If you had only asked me to stay, I would have. I offered you my sword. Yet you refused voluntary service in favor of enslavement. I do not understand it.”

It strikes Alfred like a blow: the idea that it had been unnecessary. That he could have just walked up to Uhtred and requested he stay. That he could have accepted his sword and had this man by his side all along. It is an unthinkable wound and Alfred cannot stop it from twisting his mouth into a thin and broken line. He cannot stop the sharp inhalation of breath, loud enough that Uhtred is sure to hear.

There is a long moment of silence between them before Alfred can control himself enough to speak. His voice, when it does come, sounds as though it has not been used in decades. “I did not know. Uhtred…” But he trails off, unsure where he was planning to take the statement.

“Lord,” Uhtred says, with a sigh. “I simply wish to know why. To know what it is that you want from me.”

Alfred takes a measured breath and meets Uhtred’s eyes for the first time since this conversation began. There is pain in that gaze, a small wounded sort of thing, like a dog that has been kicked one too many times or a child abandoned and alone. It cracks something deep in Alfred’s chest, some tender place that he thought he’d locked away before his brother died. He swallows passed the tightness in his throat. 

“What do I want from you? I…without the need for oaths or chains or debt or promises made, I should like you always by my side. You…I do not understand you. I fear that I do not know you, that I can never know you. Not truly. What I do know is your bravery, your insolence, your courage, and your strength. Without you, I would not now be called King. I know this too.”

Uhtred swallows. Alfred watches the bob of it. “So I am a tool to be used in your struggle for England. Like the sword you wear at your hip.” He says this decisively, as though he now understands what is between them and he accepts it, however much he is hurt by it.

Alfred shakes his head. “No. No. Not a tool. Uhtred…” He turns away, unable to speak the words that well up from that cracked, tender place in his chest and meet Uhtred’s gaze. “I value the your advice and your knowledge, yes. I admire your skill with a weapon, but especially that sword you wear. Both are true. Neither are the reason that I wish you at my side.”

“I do not understand, Lord.” Uhtred’s brow furrows and he stares at Alfred’s profile.

Alfred can see this from the corner of his eye, but he does not turn. “You are dear to me. Above…anything I am likely to admit. Above anything I should be willing to admit. You are dear to me and that is why I would have you by my side. No more, no less. And yet, every time I look at you and I reminded again that you are pagan. No matter how close we stand, that fact alone puts you far from me.”

“But why must that be so? I have known Beocca all my life and he is no less kind to me, no less dear to me now, than when I was a child, then when I was a Christian. Nor me to him, I believe. My brother Ragnar hates Christians. But he does not value me less for my baptism. He would hold me at arms length from them because of the faith into which I was born. Why can not a pagan and a Christian be friends?”

 _Your brother,_ Alfred thinks viciously, gritting his teeth, _the man who raised you. Is that how you would have us be? As kin? Am I a brother to you?_ He wants to scream. He wants to fall to his knees in the grasses and weep for that which he should not desire and cannot have. 

It is lucky, then, that he is accustomed, through long habit, to denying himself the things that he wants.

But perhaps unlucky that Uhtred has always seemed to rob him of his self-control. “Friends, then? Is that what you wish? That I should be a brother to you?” He hears himself say it, hears the bitterness in it, but cannot reconcile himself to having given this seething darkness inside him voice.

He waits for Uhtred to respond, to jerk back from him, to retreat in disgust, to laugh. He does not think that even this could prompt Uhtred to do something so foolish as to strike the King in full view of the camp, but he cannot be certain. Uhtred has never been the kind of man whose behavior he could predict. 

Alfred’s entire body has seized up in terror. He has never felt such a thing before, not in this existential way. It is as though his core, his soul itself has been replaced by fear. 

He hardly breaths, cannot swallow the saliva that pools in his mouth. He cannot think through the roaring in his head. 

“Alfred,” Uhtred says, his voice quiet. 

Alfred jerks as though struck and swings his head around. He has never heard Uhtred say his Christian name before. Now that he has, he thinks hysterically, he would like it to be the only word the man ever says.

“Alfred, a friend is not always a brother.” Uhtred smiles, a small searing thing that boils Alfred’s blood in his veins. “Brida is also my friend.”

Alfred’s lips part on an exhale and suddenly all he can see is the faint outline of a blue dress pressed against glass and a hand, Brida’s hand, clearly visible, grasping uselessly for purchase agains the panes.


End file.
